People have only become more and more terminally online since 2005. Seems like an easy update.He doesn't have a gimmick in japanese at all aside from being a creepy otaku dude. The leetspeak was completely a localization invention, and it's aged well because it makes sal seem EVEN MORE LAME with time which I think is hilarious
AA1 originally came out in 2001. I always wondered what Sal was like in the original Japanese text. IRC chat?